Exodus 20:1-6 Ego or Theo? Where is Your Center?

Exodus 20:1-6  Then God spoke all these words, saying,  "I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.  "You shall have no other gods before Me.  "You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth.  "You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me,  but showing lovingkindness to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments. (NASB)

Does anything in the passage above sound familiar?  It should!  What you have in this passage from Exodus is commandment one in a list of ten otherwise known as the ten commandments.  I would argue that the first is listed first for a reason.  Simply, it is the most important; the anchor.  It puts God in His place of supremacy and by inference everything else in its place.

In recent weeks I have encountered several situations in which the place of God has not been as black and white as it seems in these simple verses.  Do you believe what is written here?  Any arguments with commandment number one?  Do you have a problem with God’s claim here?

Frankly, those to whom I refer betrayed by their actions if not their words a really big problem with God’s own self declaration.  God says, “I am the LORD your God” and “You shall have no other gods before Me” and yet the behavior I have observed have indicated otherwise.

Now before you get ahead of me – the individuals in question had made claims of Christianity at least in some form.  Hmmmm!  How can that be?  You see, if God is in fact God and the behavior observed blatantly or otherwise indicated something different there must be a problem.  There was in fact a problem.

Sin was the problem.

Surely sin is a problem from which we all suffer.  As brothers of Adam we are all stained by the remnant of this sin whether saved by grace or still dead in our sin (unsaved) – our flesh still carries this blemish.  So in the case of my observation whether a professing Christian misbehaving or a faker, a wolf in sheep's clothing so to speak – the result was the same; sinful behavior.

The core issue is who is God?  Specifically, who is God in relation to you?  Who is the center of your universe?  Have you really surrendered to this commandment?  Do you indeed have, “No other god” before Him?  As believers when we fight the Spirit and yield to the flesh we put another god on the alter.  We become a god unto our-self as it were putting self ahead of God.  Have you ever considered it that way?  That’s the bottom line – each time we fail to submit yielding to self rather than the Lord we are putting ourselves in His place.  We become our god!

WOW!

If we don't actually put ourselves in that place - there are lot's of other small gods out there in today's culture to bow down to.  That’s exactly what Israel did in their continual struggle with idolatry throughout their wandering through the wilderness after their passage from Egypt.  What’s changed?  Sure, we don’t erect golden calves but boy there are hundreds of replacements in our lives that may become the object of our worship if we slip.  What is your center today?

Is God, the one God; your God?  Have you surrendered self?  Have you surrendered the other little gods of this world?

“Jesus *said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.” John 14:6 NASB 

Why is that?  Jesus paid the price for those pesky sins that prevent us from having a relationship with a holy God for one.  Beyond that, Jesus mediates as our faithful High Priest in heaven having walked on this earth suffering as we do every temptation yet living a sinless life.  Jesus also sent us a helper – the Holy Spirit, so as believers the Spirit testifies to our spirit about the truth of our salvation and the way in which we should behave in this life.  He is quite a guy that Jesus, eternal God and second person of the trinity. 

If you haven't asked Jesus to do this for you it doesn't cost anything and you can't do anything to earn His favor.  All you have to do is ask.  Pray to Him!  On your knees in your heart or out loud just ask Jesus to save you from your sins.  Tell Him you accept His free gift that He offers to you having paid the price for your sins by dying on that cross in Jerusalem 2000 years ago.  Accept that gift by faith today and you will be saved.

Because of Jesus we can have victory over sin.  Yes, we’ll stumble but we do not have to claim the place of God for ourselves – that’s ridiculous!  Who wants that kind of responsibility?  AMEN!